than last time.”
Rose bounces up on her toes, leaning over the side of the basket. I abandon the burner and slip an arm around her waist from behind, pulling her back against my chest.
“You’re going to kill me, Sunbeam. Step away from the edge.”
She laughs and spins in my arms, snaking hers around my neck. “You weren’t this bossy last time.”
“Last time I was holding you the entire time and not trying to pilot this beast by myself.” I reach out to the burner and adjust it, keeping her firmly in my grip with my other arm.
“I think it’s possibly the most romantic thing you’ve ever done. Learning to pilot yourself so that we can do this.” She throws her arms wide to the grounds of the estate spread out below us. The movement makes her wobble in my arms, and she giggles as I curse.
Her sweater dress slips off her shoulder as she regains her balance, and the cloud tattoo peeks out. I reach up and run my thumb over it.
“Knowing you thought about covering it up when we were apart…” I force away the sourness creeping over my tongue. “It made me realize how much I fucked everything up.”
“Hey.” Rose turns and grabs either side of my face and brings my eyes to hers. “Don’t. It’s in the past. And I would have never done it. I told you that. We don’t need to think about the time we were apart. It’s gone. It’s done.”
She swipes her lips over mine in a gentle kiss. I do well most days not to curse myself for almost losing her. It used to creep up on me sometimes. But time and talking about it has helped since Rose came back to England with me.
Jasmin persuaded me to try therapy to process finding out about Julian being my biological father. Rose came with me once and talked about Julian and what he almost did to her. But she seemed content to let it go, burning the word fear on the bonfire afterward. For the first time, we burned the same word at the same time. I can’t be afraid that I almost lost her anymore. I can’t let the past stain our future. Time is too precious.
She is too precious.
Julian’s still awaiting trial. The bastard shows no remorse at all, and I cling to the certainty Rose has in her eyes each time she tells me I am nothing like him. She believes it, so I have to. I have to be the best man I can be for her.
And Sophie’s confident Julian’s going to be locked up for years. Maybe the trial will act as closure. Alistair said as much to me. My half-brother wants to see our father go down as much as me.
Rose strokes my cheek, reading me. She always knows when I’m torturing myself. Blaming myself.
“Don’t,” she whispers against my lips.
“I can’t help it.” I squeeze my eyes shut and kiss her back, allowing her scent and her touch to center me again. The way they always do.
It’s strange how things work out, when given time. Sometimes the estate is so busy I can go an entire day without remembering all Rose and I have been through. And other days, like today, it can hit me at any given time. Some days, it hits me the second I wake up.
But now I wake up with Rose in my arms, and nothing can ever distinguish the way my heart pounds with joy when I see her face first thing in the morning. When I kiss her, sink myself inside her, love her with everything I am.
Because I do. Fuck, I do. And I’m determined never to live in the past again.
I kiss her again, and she nips at my lips playfully, making me groan. She giggles as my fingers flex on her waist, and I curse softly at the way she feels beneath my palms. She always makes it better, makes it sting less. Just by being her.
I kiss her once more, then spin her, wrapping my arms around her from behind as I leave the burner and allow us to float through the clouds.
“Go on then.”
“Go on what?” She leans back against my chest and sighs happily as she looks out at the view.
“Look for the silver lining.”
I wait for her to scan the clouds and pick one. But instead, she turns inside my arms and looks straight into my eyes.
“I’m staring right at it.”
“Nope.” I shake my head with a small smile and try to turn her again. “I’m not accepting that answer.”
“Stop.” She balls my shirt in her fists. “Remember what you said to me once?”
“That I’m going to marry you.” My lips twitch. I’ve made no secret of telling her that she will be Rose Silver before the year is over.
She thinks I’m joking.
I’m not.
She rolls her eyes with a smirk. “I mean when you said that I thought the world only saw my worst. But that you saw my best. That’s what I mean, Dax. I see yours. I see the beautiful shining parts of you that light up like glitter.”
She bites back her grin as I narrow my eyes at her. I was finding silver glitter for weeks after we came home from New York. Rose thought it was hilarious.
“It’s a trick of the light.” I look up at the envelope of the balloon.
“It’s not. It’s magic.” Rose pulls my face back down, her lips spreading into a face-splitting grin. “It’s magic and I won’t let you say otherwise, Dax Silver.”
She giggles as I hold the back of her neck and kiss her. “What the fuck am I going to do with you, Sunbeam?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.” She steps out from my arms and spins toward the edge of the basket again, pointing at a cloud shaped like a fish, neither hand holding on as she turns to see if I’ve seen it.
I’m behind her like a shot, one hand gripping her hip as the other slides around her waist and holds her tight, pulling her back to the middle of the basket with me, away from the edge.
I dip my nose to her ear. “Will you fucking stop before I spank you?”
She bites her bottom lip and looks back at me over her shoulder, her eyes lighting up. And I know that look. I call her Sunbeam because she’s the light to my darkest parts and she’s the best start to my day. But maybe it should be because of the firecracker heat she has inside her.
Life is certainly interesting with Rose Jacobs as your girlfriend.
“Lean back.” She turns and drops to her knees and pulls at the zipper of my suit pants.
“Rose, I’m flying a giant bag of hot fucking air here,” I reply, setting the burner going again so we don’t float too low.
“You telling me you don’t like me sucking your cock?” She pulls it out, and the bastard is already hard with pre-cum pooling at the end and covering my piercing.
“God, give me strength,” I mutter, tilting my head back to the sky.
“He won’t help you.” Rose giggles as she takes me inside her mouth and sucks.
“Fuck!” The burner fires up as I pull on it too hard.
She giggles again before sucking down hard on my cock, taking me all the way down to the base.
My eyes roll back in my head, and I drop one hand to her hair and stroke the blonde strands between my fingers. She sucks me off with enthusiastic moans until my balls draw up and I’m shaking with the effort of holding my release at bay.
“Keep doing that and I’ll be coming down your throat any second,” I groan.
She draws back, flicking her tongue over my piercing, which sends shockwaves pulsating down the length of my cock. Her blue eyes are bright as she blinks up at me. Then she smiles and sucks me all the way down again, tugging on my balls gently.
I grit my teeth, a playful warning in my eyes as I growl, stroking her cheek as I release streams of hot cum into her mouth.
She gazes up at me as she swallows it.
She knows she’ll pay for this later.
And knowing Rose, she’s already counting down the time until I fuck her hard as punishment. There’s nothing that this girl won’t let me do to her. She wants it all the time. She wants me all the time.
But it’s never as much as I want her.
There’s no measurement of time that could accurately portray just how much I want her. How much she means to me. How much I love her. How fucking grateful I am that she chose forgiveness.
That she chose me.
She came back to England with me days after I went for her. On the understanding that Casey could visit whenever she wanted, and that I would go back with her for an extended vacation for Harley and Reed’s wedding next month.
Like I would have ever said no. I’m never letting her out of my sight again. And I love how excited she gets talking about it. She said Brett’s convinced Lena to go as his date. And the way her eyes light up as she talks about him now, instead of clouding over like they used to, it fills every fucking crack that my soul once had.
“Do you think they’ll be happy?” Rose asks as she rises to her feet, licking her lips.
I fix my pants and pull her to me, kissing her and tasting myself on her lips.
“I only care about whether you’re happy.”
She laughs and places her hands against my chest as she gazes down at the estate and the hive of activity going on as the team brought in for tomorrow’s wedding race around to make everything perfect.
Whoever this guy is that Logan and Jasmin have met up with—the one who I caved to and let host a wedding on the estate—has a fuck load of money. There’s even a giant ice sculpture that’s been flown in from Switzerland.
Rose places her head against my chest over where my compass is, her hand reaching up to stroke the bird on my neck. It’s her favorite position. It’s how she sleeps, wrapped in my arms. And she sleeps well now. We both do.
“I know there’s a romantic in there, Dax Silver. One who learns to pilot balloons and tattoos a rose over his heart. One that lets strangers host their wedding here because he heard it was the bride’s dream.”
I smirk as I wrap a hand around her neck and stroke her pulse point. “I think all the sunrise sex is going to your head.”
“I like sunrise sex.” She pouts.
I chuckle against her lips. “And I love making you come every morning. And day. And night. And after balloon rides.”
“Is Logan going to meet us and then drive the balloon back?”
“Yep.”
“The bush on the drive home?” She bites her bottom lip.
I pull her snagged lip free with my thumb and kiss her again. “Yep. And then again when we get home. I can’t fuck you the way I want in the Range Rover.”
“The mirror?” Her eyes light up.
“Yes, Sunbeam. My fucking favorite mirror.”
She laughs as I descend on her neck, groaning into her skin as I kiss it and inhale.
Vanilla. Petals. Infinity.
